Holden

by Olivia Gaines

  -Fin-

  Excerpt Wyoming Nights

  1 Chapter One- Darkness

  The darkness held onto her throat like an assailant in a dimly lit alley. It pressed down on her chest, stealing the breaths that tethered her to this world. A world that no longer welcomed her presence. Cowardice had become a close companion to the nerves that seemed frayed on the edges but in the center were piles of mush. A life that had been so abundantly giving in the first 48 years of living; had been warm and wonderful. The last four were filled with a sour gloom that stunk up and darkened every room she entered.

  Death has a way of doing that to the living.

  It was a black evening with no moonlight anywhere when the minivan which held her husband George, her children George IV and Nathalie, and Joseph and Jack her grandbabies, slid off the side of the road. So many people told Darlene that it was a blessing from God that each one died on impact. By her accounting, that didn’t seem like much of a blessing. It felt more like a curse to have everyone you loved all die on the same day.

  In four years, she had never felt more alone than she did today. Her brothers, Roosevelt and James called often and stopped in when they could, and sadly most of her friends have given up on her two years ago. The neighbors, in the swanky neighborhood where she lived that she never spoke to, never spoke to her either.

  The doorbell rang and Darlene dragged herself from the bed still dressed in the same pajamas she put on three days before. Water had not touched her body nor had a comb touched her hair in the same said three days giving her an unusual odor of dirty bed sheets and sweaty sleep. The job that had taken so much time from her family, she quit three years ago. George’s insurance had paid off the mortgage and left more than enough for her to live off which is what she chose to do. If one could call what she was doing –living. Bare feet walked across the wooden floors leaving damp foot prints from sweaty soles as she made her way to the front door. The new anti-depressants Dr. Murphy had given her made her body produce more sweat than normal and everything around her smelled sour. It was perfect when one thought about it, because her outsides matched the insides of her soul.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I’m coming,” she grumbled as she trudged her way to the front door. The blinds were up and the sun was shining into the 5,500 square foot home where during the holidays it brimmed with decorations and family members. Now, it was a silent tomb with walls covered in photos of images of joy from years gone by. Thank heavens for the housekeeper that still came three times a week and often cooked her meals. It was the only way she ate actual food outside of her best friend Krysten who came and stayed on the weekends.

  Begrudgingly, she made it to the front door, peered through the side glass to spot non-other than Krysten standing on the landing. If she is here it must be Friday. Where had the rest of the week gone? She opened the front door to her long-time friend. Krysten was the only one who still bothered to come for a visit.

  “Gurl,” was the word used to start every sentence that began with Darlene when she wanted to make a point of something. “You smell like something nasty wore you out last night!” Her lip was upturned as she eyed the pajama clad Darlene.

  “I’m sorry, I am just getting up,” Darlene lied.

  Krysten already knew it was the furthest thing from the truth. She pointed at Darlene’s crotch.

  “Gurl,” she said with a disapproving scowl. “What have you been eating a seafood buffet? You need to go wash: wash your breath, wash your hair and especially...” she paused for effect. “...that sweaty ass that I can also smell from over here!”

  “You do know that some days I can barely stomach you,” Darlene said as she closed the front door.

  “And the way you smell right now I can barely stomach your stinking ass either,” she said while she pushed Darlene towards the bathroom to the shower. “You have to get showered, I have so much to tell you! I am going to start the shower, open this wine and we need to talk.”

  “Seriously Krysten, I feel like crap, maybe this weekend you don’t need to stay,” she whined.

  “Gurl, you can forget that. I have been busy and I have got some news to share with you that is going to twist your wig,” she said as she looked at Darlene’s hair. “...well twist it some more.”

  She reached inside her messenger bag and pulled out a stack of file folders filled with papers. The colored folders varied in thicknesses. The files were left on the granite countertops next to the greasy pizza box as she drug Darlene by the arm into the bedroom. Immediately she grabbed her nose as she flung open the drapes, pulled up the blinds and commenced to pulling the bedding to the floor.

  “Don’t make me undress you and throw you in that shower,” she said to Darlene.

  A spark ignited in the back of her fuzzy brain. “You’d like to see me naked wouldn’t you?”

  Krysten did not miss a step. “The way you smell, I am not that gay where I could overlook the funk.”

  Darlene found herself trying to compose the beginning of a smile as she headed into the bathroom. She looked over her shoulder at her friend. Krysten was a fireplug of a woman, with deep cocoa skin, a low haircut and a penchant for men’s suits. She even liked to sport wing tips on her high heels or in loafer form. She was one of the best environmental lawyers in the country now that Darlene was no longer practicing law. Through the years, a few other attorneys took exception to the life choices of a counselor on the rise who made it perfectly clear to all who watched, that her personal life was personal. If anyone wanted to take an exception to it, she would gladly face off with them in a court of law for discrimination. As great as she was as an environmental lawyer, she was even better in civil suits. Darlene often teased her that she should start her own PI firm because each time she began to date someone new, she opened a file and investigated them thoroughly.

  The file folders!

  Darlene still had shampoo in her hair when she jumped out the shower and ran into the kitchen. Krysten was loading up the dirty bed linens when a soapy, towel clad Darlene pointed her finger at her friend and began yelling, “What are those folders for Krys? What wacky ass idea have you come up with this time?”

  The attempt at an innocent face was not working. The miming of surprise and pretending she had no idea what Darlene was talking about wasn’t working either.

  “Krys, what have you done?”

  She held up her hands in defense. “Before you get all up in arms, why don’t you get back in the shower and get up under your arms in the literal sense. I think you missed some spots.”

  Darlene’s lips were tight.

  Krysten made her way back to the kitchen to grab the bottle of wine from her bag so she could open it. She waved her hands like she was shooing geese. “I’m not hearing it. I am not talking to you until you smell human again, Darlene. Go on now. Git!”

  Reluctantly, a stench ridden Darlene headed back to the shower. The combination of the file folders and Krysten were never good pairing. She rinsed and conditioned her hair, and gave her body a good scrubbing. A spark was flowing through her and whatever her friend had in those folders actually gave her something to look forward to and she found herself again, forming a tentative smile. Something else she hadn’t done in a very long time.

  The smile came to a quick stop when she spotted the greasy box which held the worst pizza in the city, the cheap-o bottle of wine and the cheese eating grin on Krysten’s face.

  Darlene said aloud what she was thinking, “I am scared.”

  “Scared of what?” Krysten asked.

  A small bite was taken out of the pizza which coagulated in her mouth when combined with the cheap red wine.

  “I am terrified of what you have come up with and what is inside of those folders,” Darlene said as she took a seat on a barstool at the counter top. “I am kind of excited, but scared at the same time.”

  “You should be excited. In those folders are four fun filled weekends! I have plane tickets
for four exciting getaways. We are going to New Orleans, Orlando, somewhere in Amish country Pennsylvania and our last stop is Wyoming,” Krysten said as she shoveled in her rather large mouth a large slice of the dripping pizza.

  Darlene wasn’t biting. “I am not on the hook yet. Why these four cities?”

  “Because I have plane tickets,” she said with a grin.

  “Why do you have plane tickets to these four particular places Krys?”

  “There are four men that we are going to meet,” she said calmly.

  “Why are we going to meet four men in those four locations?”

  Krysten was smiling. “Because each of them have proposed to you and we are going to pick you out a husband.” She smiled at her friend. “This is good wine; can you pass me some more?”

  “No! No wine for you! You need to explain to me why four men I don’t even know have proposed marriage to me...Krys, what have you done?” A sweat bead rolled in between her breasts as she thought of meeting men again.

  Krysten rounded the island to pick up the $5 bottle of wine she grabbed from some truck stop on the I-95.

  “Darlene, you are an accomplished woman, but unfortunately, you are one of those sisters who have to have a man to feel complete,” she told her.

  “I do not! I am in mourning! My entire family died in a car crash! You don’t just wake up and get over that Krys,” she said with a trembling voice full of emotion.

  “Yeah. That is sad,” she paused, “I cannot imagine your agony, but it was 4 years ago. Yes, your family is dead, but you aren’t. You can get mad at me if you want to but I am doing this for your own good.”

  This was too much. Darlene stood up and pointed to the door. “Krys, you have over-stepped. I want you to leave.”

  Krysten took a seat as she poured herself more wine. “I ain’t going no damned where, well at least not until next weekend when we climb aboard that plane to the Big Easy...I am having beignets and coffee...I don’t want any of that other stuff that they throw in a bowl with sausage and shrimp. That stuff smells like ass,” she said in a huff. She mumbled under her breath, “It kinda smells like you did before you showered.”

  “I am not frickin’ kidding with you Krys! This is unacceptable. How in the world did you even...”?

  Krysten softened her voice, “Darlene, I know your hurt. I have spent every weekend with you since your family was taken away, and each week you climb deeper and deeper into the black abyss of nothing. You are my friend and I love you. You have left me no option in saving you from yourself...”

  “So you are going to marry me off to one of these four men?”

  “I have worked hard over the last six months to narrow down these four gentlemen to help you find your purpose again,” she said.

  “...my purpose...?”

  “Yes, your purpose,” Krysten said. “Before your purpose was to work hard, save the planet for your children and your grandchildren. You worked like a horse to get all of these nice things and now none of them have meaning to you anymore. You took legislation to the head in Washington and fought some big corporate monsters. There are laws on the books that you enacted which protect our lakes, rivers, and streams. That is no longer your fight. Your new fight is for your sanity. You have to find a new purpose, find a new man to love that needs you and build a new life.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “I will not let you die alone in this mausoleum. It is time to start breathing again, Darlene. We are going to get you a husband and get you back to living,” she said.

  In some ways she wanted to cry but her tear ducts had dried out a while ago. “You think it is going to be that simple?”

  “It may be that simple or that difficult. Either way, we are booked in nice hotels in three of the locations and the last one I think we have to stay at his cabin,” Krysten said.

  “A cabin?”

  “Yeah, he is some sort of master fitness hiking Park Ranger and that man is so fine, I saw that pic of him and was straight for a whole 30 seconds! Gurl, I even felt some moisture in my girl cave.” Krysten fanned herself as if she were having a hot flash.

  Darlene began to laugh.

  “That is a beautiful sound. I have missed it,” Krysten told her.

  “Fine. I will go along to get out of the house, but I am not making any promises,” she said.

  “All we need is to start. These four are a great beginning. I am not certain you will like any of them, or you may fall in love with all four of them, but if not, we start over. They paid for the tickets, we paid for the hotels,” she said.

  Darlene’s heart was racing as her eyes looked over at the folder. “Okay. I am braced, let’s see what you got?”

  Krysten was grinning. “I did the background checks and pulled financial histories...I also hired a private investigator to check their real backgrounds...” She said all of this as she brought the folders over to the couch, along with the cheap-o bottle of wine. She waved her hand for Darlene to join her.

  “Wait,” Darlene said. “I need a decent bottle of wine before I can even start to hear you out.”

  “Go on, get your fancy French wine. Let’s see who gets drunk first, me on this vintage bottle of good stuff aged for three weeks that I brought or that prissy pretentious bottle of grape juice you got!”

  “I also need to make us something decent to eat. I cannot digest those slices of grease you brought over as food,” she said to Krys.

  “If it goes in greasy...”

  “I cannot believe you graduated from Harvard, you talk like you went to school in the middle of Country Central,” she said.

  None of it mattered to Krysten. In the past thirty minutes, her friend of 30 years had laughed out loud and smiled twice. Moreover, she was going into the kitchen to cook. That was the first time she had seen either in four years. Pushing her was unfair, but love sometimes required less talk and more action. She was taking action to help her friend move forward.

  In the end, what is important was her friend’s life.

  Continuing Reading Darlene’s story

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  About the Author

  Olivia Gaines is the award winning bestselling author of Thursdays in Savannah. She also writes the best-selling serial The Blakemore Files. Olivia has been called a "queen of romantic comedy" and her romances are praised as "hilarious, touching, and heartwarming. Highly recommended!"

  She lives in Hephzibah, GA with her husband, son and snotty cat, Katness Evermean.

  Connect with Olivia on her FB page at https://www.facebook.com/Ogaines/ or her website at http://ogaines.com.

  @Oliviagaines

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  Coming Soon

  The quilts weren’t the only thing he thought was beautiful.

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  Did you love Holden? Then you should read Wyoming Nights by Olivia Gaines!

  In one night, she lost everything she loved.

  In one man she learned to love everything she lost.

  Starting over, never felt so damned good.

  Read more at Olivia Gaines’s site.

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  Modern Mail Order Brides

  On A Rainy Night in Georgia

  Buckeye and the Babe

  The Tennessee Mountain Man

  Bleu, Grass, Bourbon

  Serenity Series

  Welcome to Serenit
y

  Holden

  Farmer Takes A Wife

  Slice of Life

  Friends with Benefits

  Slivers of Love

  The Cost to Play

  Thursdays in Savannah

  The Blakemore Files

  Being Mrs. Blakemore

  Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore

  Dancing with Mr. Blakemore

  Cruising with the Blakemores

  Dinner with the Blakemores

  Loving the Czar

  Being Mr. Blakemore

  A Weekend with the Blakemores

  The Davonshire Series

  Courting Guinevere

  The Men of Endurance

  A Walk Through Endurance

  Intervals of Love

  The Art of Persistence

  A Return to Endurance

  A Walk Through Endurance

  The Technicians

  Blind Luck

  The Value of A Man

  My Mail Order Wife

  A Weekend with the Cromwells

  Cutting it Close

  The Zelda Diaries

  It Happened Last Wednesday

  A Frickin' Fantastic Friday

  A Tantalizing Tuesday

  Standalone

  Santa's Big Helper

  A Menu For Loving

  North to Alaska

  Turning the Page

  An Untitled Love

  Wyoming Nights

  Montana

  Blind Date

  The Christmas Quilts

  Watch for more at Olivia Gaines’s site.